As a volunteer member of my church's Preschool executive board, we had to revise our maternity leave policy in our employee handbook. It brings me back to when I used to work full-time outside my house.
A friend of mine worked at a male-dominated firm (we'll call her Lindsey). She asked her HR person (we'll call him Richard) what the maternity leave was and he said there was no maternity leave and that she would need to take vacation when she had her baby.
“Two weeks should be plenty of time to have a baby and be back at work.”
Lindsey went to her doctor and asked if this was true (this being her first child) and after the doctor stopped laughing... he said NO. She'll need need at least six weeks off—what other women do is take short term disability.
So Lindsey went back to Richard and asked about short-term disability. Richard said, “Yes we have short-term disability but you can't use it.” Lindsey asked why. Richard said, “Your unborn child is a self-inflicted wound and so you can't take short-term disability. If you did, you would be the equivalent of a construction worker purposefully stepping on a nail to get paid time off.”
Lindsey had a healthy baby boy and used short-term disability for six weeks. She was laid off when she went back to work.
